Antonija Balić

Half a Lifetime

Bačva Gallery

03.09. – 13.09.2015.

Exhibition opening – 03.09.2015. at 7pm

Antonija Balić Šimrak’s work consists of several parts exhibited around the gallery, the materials of which are connected with the construction of bed itself. The title Half a Life (taken from the novel by V. S. Naipaul) can relate to the initial verses of The Divine Comedy, as the indication of the point of recapitulation of the distance travelled, and confrontation with one’s inner fears, transformed into strange beasts. This is most evident on the duvets with digitally printed images related to the artist’s fascination. The ambiguity of meaning, as well as the harshness and arbitrariness of their computer-processed compositions are reminiscent of a nightmare. Dolls of different colours and textures, with epidermis made of upholstery fabric, are exhibited around the gallery space in free flight: they can be moved, and as plump human figures that defy logic and gravity they evoke neutrality and pervasiveness of dreams (the name of Morpheus, Greek god of dreams, which has the same root as the Greek word for form, also brings to mind this parallel), as well as reality. In fact, they are pillow-shaped and typical, they can represent any person we dream about, and all of them (projected, or visualized) are part of the dreamer’s personality or memories. On the other hand, is not this the way in which we also construct reality? Aren’t our perceptions of the people we meet only functions of our personality, our view, which we simply cannot overcome or escape from?

The springs in the mattress, exposed and lightened from behind, look like a relief of “programmed art” because of the shadows and repetition of forms, like some rational neo-constructivist creation. However, three colours (magenta, yellow and orange), which the author placed in the spring pockets, and which drip freely, leaving behind larger or smaller stains, representing the touch of sensuality, dynamic emphasis of an interesting base texture and visual accent that, exactly the opposite from programming, gives the impression of randomness and free intervention. Stains and their intensities on three surfaces are thus associatively linked to the imprints of bodies on the mattress, tossing about it by intrinsic and unfathomable forces of dream and passion. The symbolic construction of a trauma is created by the exposed duvet, parts of which are torn and sewn together again, sometimes with a thread dipped in colour that left a soft trace on the material.

From the preface of Feđa Gavrilović

Antonija Balić Šimrak was born in 1969 in Patna, India. A resident of Zagreb since 1976, she enrolled in the School of Applied Arts and Design in 1983, from which she graduated in 1987. The same year she enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb and in 1992 graduated from the Department of Sculpture. She had seventeen solo exhibitions (VN Gallery, Studio Gallery Forum, Karas Gallery, SC Gallery, Koprivnica Gallery, Božidar Jakac Gallery – Slovenia, The Glyptotheque – HAZU, etc.) and numerous group exhibitions in the country and abroad. She received several awards and acknowledgements and her work is featured in several art collections in Croatia and Slovenia. Since 2009 she has been an as associate professor at the Department of Art Education at the Faculty of Teacher Education, University of Zagreb.

The exhibition is financially supported by the City Office for culture, Education and Sports Zagreb and by The Ministry of Culture of the Republic Croatia.

Bačva Gallery

Croatian Association of Fine Artists

Trg žrtava fašizma 16, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia 

Working hours:

Wednesday to Friday 11am – 7pm

Saturday and Sunday 10am – 6pm.

Monday, Tuesday and holidays – closed